Seth Emerson gets asked a direct question about Georgia’s dysfunctional coaching staff from Richt’s last season and does the best he can with it, for obvious reasons.

What really happened between the coaches the week of the Kentucky game in 2015? This is when the rumors swirled about Jeremy Pruitt being fired, and presumably is at the center of Tracy Rocker’s later comments about a “mutiny” in Mark Richt’s last year. – Guy O., Ithaca, NY (UGA 1997)

Well, that’s a tricky one. Maybe as the years go on people in the know will be more comfortable revealing things. But right now they’ve all got jobs and in the coaching industry speaking out on such subjects isn’t viewed favorably. You saw that when Mike Ekeler, in an interview last year with a Texas newspaper, slipped up and talked about working with people he couldn’t stand, or something along those lines. Ekeler quickly tweeted out that he enjoyed working with Richt. (He didn’t mention the other guys.)

I’ll be honest here in that I know and suspect more than I’m willing to share, for reasons of confidentiality with sources, etc. What I am willing to say is that I’ve not heard anything to confirm that there was some major incident. It seems it was just the usual clash of personalities in a workplace, exacerbated by a bad stretch of losing in which one side of the ball (offense) was mainly at fault. There were factions, and even if Richt had been retained he was going to have to make changes. Rocker, Kevin Sherrer and Pruitt were generally of the same mind, while guys like John Lilly and Bryan McClendon did their best to keep their heads down. (And you saw how good a job McClendon did in holding things together, guiding the team to a bowl win, with Lilly guiding the offense and Sherrer the defense.)

That said, I don’t think Richt was let go because of all the tumult on the staff. It really was about the on-field product, and not wanting to let South Carolina hire Smart.

I agree with the last paragraph there, pretty much, anyway. That being said, one day somebody’s gonna write a book about Richt’s final season in Athens and it’ll make for one helluva read.

Agreed that Pruitt was very good at assembling and motivating a defense. However, I think it sometimes gets to the point that, no matter how good someone is at the job, they can wind up doing more harm than good if they don’t respect the folks they work with. Guessing that may be the case with Pruitt.

Agree, have seen several cases where “organizational disasters” were viewed as doing too much harm to justify keeping them in a place despite some of them being over achievers in their specific job responsibilities. We were a large, well funded operation and could find ways to use their talents, in some unique, isolated ways. In a small group like the UGA coaching staff, that isn’t an option. I don’t think anyone questions what Pruitt was able to do with his unit but if I were picking my “team”, he would not be on it regardless of his talent. With only 10-11 coaches working in close proximity he would be an anchor, and particularly over any extended time. Too much drama, too much distraction from the job at hand; like a rowing crew, everyone needs to be in sync and pulling in the same direction.

There will be someone to take a chance on him, particularly if he works to get better at his reported weaknesses. It isn’t likely to be a big power school because they will not risk the risk and don’t have to rely as much on “big name recognition” to get the job done.

Yeah, exactly. At Bama they are all about winning. At Bama if someone isn’t about winning they hit the bricks. My read on Pruitt is that he was/is all about winning and if he didn’t get along with some at Georgia it was because they weren’t. It seems to me that at UGA they are are weeding out the wrong guys. (Read “Rocker”)

I believe the transition to Smart will be a net gain in the long run, but I sure hate how it went down with Richt. Not so much 2015, but letting him dangle in the wind during so many off-seasons. If they were going to fire him after a year like 2015, it should have been done at least a couple of years before then, maybe more. Instead it was a bunch of ass-covering indecision which made closing out recruiting classes more difficult. How many years since 2005 was Richt “on the hot seat”?. Either fire him or say, emphatically, that he’s our guy. For a long time they did neither, and the results were predictably mediocre.

Look at Ole Miss’ recruiting class this year to see what hot seat or NCAA troubles can do to recruiting in an instant. One of the main reasons McClendon was said to have zero interest in working with Kirby Smart was because of their near altercations on the recruiting trail over things Smart would say about Richt and that Richt was getting fired any day now. McGarity hamstrung Richt from day one and was glad to finally have the big money support to fire him.

Agreed. McCheap undermined CMR from his first day in Athens. Looking at things after the fact one could conclude that McCheap was actually trying to get rid of Mark Richt all along. Why else would you book an opening game against Boise when UGA was coming off the worst season (6-7) of CMR’s career? Not to mention that the second game was against a resurgent South Carolina squad coached by Spurrier. Looking back I’m actually surprised McCheap didn’t use the South Carolina loss in 2011 as the pretext to fire CMR midseason then. After all, it was actually 3 losses in a row at that point counting the bowl loss from the previous season.I guess McCheap thought that the team would tank after losing the first 2 in 2011 and he could do it after the season. CMR fooled him by turning things around and having a 10 game winning streak that year.

You left out telling CMR not to spike the ball at the end of the 2012 SECCG. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad CMR is gone, even though I liked the guy personally. He made too many bonehead decisions on gameday that lost games and seemed incapable of learning from his mistakes. But McCheap undermined him too. I hate back-stabbers and McCheap is of that ilk IMHO.

Fair enough, and I agree (although I’m fine with the decision not to spike actually). I just can’t stand the narrative that it’s all McG’s fault. McG is a hack that’s in over his head, but Richt largely fired himself IMO. 2014 UF was as much the deathknell as anything and there is only one person to blame.

The seeds of CMR’s departure were sown when he kept his ol’ buddy Willie around too long even when it was apparent to everyone, including CMR, that Willie couldn’t do the job. He used up all his goodwill with the fanbase.

While I would love to read the account of what happened, I can’t imagine there’s anyone who would come out of the story looking like the good guy … just varying shades of what the hell were you thinking.

That’s exactly why the real story will never hit the light of day. Whoever spills the beans will try to make himself look good. Someone else will then come out and let everyone know what douche that person was.

From what I’ve understood since just after the incident occurred, basically the whole thing has grown legs and become an internet sensation all on its own. In other words, the friction or incident itself was far less dramatic than what many have made it out to be since.

The third clique that Seth didn’t mention was CMR, Bobo, and Brown. Those three were buddies and, by the midway point of the season, certainly were at odds with Pruitt and co. Given the weak leadership at play due to CMR’s rather passive, apathetic style of management, Pruitt filled the void and became the alpha dog, thus essentially behaving as acting head coach. This in part led to a tense incident with TB that would not have ended well for Pruitt if things continued to escalate (IMO).

I agree that CMR wasn’t let go do to the utter mess the staff had become…but it certainly didn’t help his cause either, that’s for sure. After all, TPTB at Butts-Mehre despised Pruitt and were amazed how he was essentially running the show while acting unprofessionally, from what I understand.

Overall, again it was a giant mess, in which hitting control+alt+delete and rebooting the entire program was certainly the right decision long term.

Oh yea, I’ll never forget being told in the preseason that year that our offense would be a complete mess, and that there was already buyers remorse with Schotty. Of course, after the SCU game UGA fans were ecstatic — hell many thought they we had a Montana/Walsh combination on our hands with Schotty/Lambert. I even questioned my source as well, in which he simply replied, “wait.”

I was an optimist, for sure. And honestly, the Bama game didn’t phase me too much on the Offense. I thought there was rain and it was Bama, etc. etc. What was so crazy was how it all fell apart so quickly after the Tennessee game. There were certainly signs that it wasn’t that good…but the idea we’d go two full games without a TD is just insane.

It actually fell apart DURING the Tennessee game–when Chubb was injured. UGA was up by 21 and went completely in the tank offensively in the second half. Then the rest of the season the Dawgs had no real O.

Wait, so in the first post you staqte that SMR and Schotty were buddies, then in this last post you write that CMR already had buyers remorse for hiring SChotty. Which is it? Or do you really even know? My sources tell me that CMR was railroaded into hiring Schotty and had no real connection to him.

CMR was not railroaded at all. Yes, he had buyers remorse…but he also really only had choice once by the time the season started, and that’s to ride the horse that brought you and hope that things work out for the best. He also liked Schotty personally as well and was concerned that Pruitt’s abrasive style might affect him negatively on game day. Basically, you can like someone personally and/or be friends with them and still have reservations about hiring them. Heck, I’ve personally been in that situation numerous times over the year.

I’m not blaming Pruitt for anything based on hearsay. Just looking at the product on the field the man was doing his job. And no wonder he wasn’t happy with the offense; if we’re honest we were all unhappy with it. I remember calls for Schotty’s head were all over the dawgosphere.

From all the unsubstantiated rumors I think we can without a doubt ascertain that Richt was worn down at UGA and didn’t have the energy, stamina or savvy to do what he was paid to do, be in ironclad control of all the personalities involved. If there was fighting Richt should have been the referee who ended it quickly instead of Barney Fife hoping to nip it in the bud. We still have our Pruitt and his name is Kirby.

Basically the offense sucked… was predictable… no creativity and no accountability. Pruitt thought they needed to change and said so. CMR said golly gee and Pruitt lost it. Thomas Brown stood up for Richt. Now you can wait for the movie.

The interesting question is whether or not we will find ourselves in the same situation next fall… without the golly gee.

It was NOT a throwaway year, in the sense of waste, but there was stuff to throwaway in the sense of bad culture. It was simultaneously cleaning out the rot and laying a new foundation. It was a painful but necessary step to take us where we want to go. Just look at the recruiting class – and that in wake of a mediocre on-field performance. CKS is working the plan and it’s all falling into place. And now that we’ve got a real-deal coach, there aren’t going to be any mutinies.

Quote Of The Day

“But outside of that, the biggest advantage you can have is have good leadership, have a veteran football team, and when you’ve got that, it doesn’t matter whether you have spring practice or not. When you don’t have that, it’s tougher, when you don’t have leadership and you don’t have the experience at certain positions.”— Kirby Smart, Dawgs247, 3/31/20